Hogwarts: I graduated before the system came

"The powerful and mysterious Shadow Realm Priest we are pursuing, the legendary guardian who voluntarily sealed himself away..."

He shook his head, as if laughing at his own previous naiveté.

"He is not a silent one, he is a prisoner. He is not a guardian, he is a poor man forced to curse his own tomb."

“Legends are just stories written by people.”

Douglas' voice broke the silence, and he looked at the rock that had returned to calm with sharp eyes.

"It seems that this fairy tale book in our hands is not a treasure map."

He paused, then turned to look at Bill with a look of understanding in his eyes.

"This surprise may not be an invitation, Taoist."

"It's a letter asking for help."

As soon as he finished speaking, the huge wind-eroded rock suddenly changed.

It didn't split apart, nor did it rise upward.

Instead, it is like a stone bud, starting from the center and silently spinning inward layer by layer.

Each "petal" is extremely thick, but the edges are as thin as a cicada's wing. It rotates silently, demonstrating a precision mechanical craftsmanship that is ahead of its time.

When the rock fully blossomed, a bottomless vertical shaft appeared in front of the two.

On the wall of the well, the faint green light of the spiritual moss remained, extending downwards and disappearing into the darkness.

A faint buzzing sound came from deep in the well.

The sound was very low, like the resonance produced by many pottery pieces placed together.

It was also like seven souls that had been imprisoned for thousands of years, uttering endless cries in the darkness.

The sound was like the murmuring of a giant whale in the deep sea, or like countless beetles flapping their wings under the sand.

It is not heard through the ears, but resonates directly on the inner walls of the skull.

Bill took the lead. He took out a thin probe with a crystal embedded in the top from his tool kit and carefully inserted it into the wellhead.

The crystal didn't glow, nor did it emit any warning.

"There are no instantaneous curses."

Bill's voice echoed at the wellhead, taking on a hollow, muffled sound.

"At least the entrance is safe."

He untied a coil of rope from his waist and fixed one end firmly to the chassis of the Land Rover with a spell.

"I'll go down first."

Bill spoke briefly and put the probe back into the hook at his waist with the skillful movements of a Muggle preparing to climb a rock.

"and many more."

Douglas held his shoulders.

He pulled two small earplugs from his pocket and handed one to Bill.

"A variation of the soundproofing spell, with some gentian powder added to it. It can filter out sonic attacks of a certain frequency."

Douglas explained.

"There's something wrong with that buzz."

Bill raised his eyebrows, took the earplugs and put them in, with an approving smile on his face.

"I knew I was right to bring you here."

Douglas also put in his earplugs, and the annoying buzzing sound was indeed weakened a lot, becoming a tolerable background bass.

"Fluorescence."

A soft light appeared on the tip of Bill's wand. He grabbed the rope, tapped his feet lightly on the wall of the well, and his body slid nimbly into the bottomless darkness.

Douglas followed closely behind.

The wall of the well is not smooth rock, but is made of a black, basalt-like material covered with fine holes, like the cross-section of a huge anthill.

The constant whisper was the sound of the wind pouring into those holes.

The descent was long and boring. Only the full moon above my head shrank from the well mouth to a silver coin, and then to a star.

Finally, my toes touched solid ground.

This is a narrow tomb passage, just enough for two people to walk side by side.

The air was stagnant and dry, carrying a smell that had been sealed for thousands of years, a mixture of dried minerals and plants.

Bill's wand light extended forward, illuminating the walls on both sides of the tomb passage.

Those murals appeared.

They are not carvings, but painted directly on the rock wall with some special plant pigments.

The colors are dull, the lines are rough, and there are some vague human figures painted on them.

Each one has no face.

"Be careful."

Bill's voice was low as he held up an old, brass-cased magic camera.

At the moment he pressed the shutter, the light of the wand met the magical flash of the camera.

The scene on the wall came alive.

The outlines of those spirits whose faces had been erased began to slowly crawl on the wall.

The paint seemed to have turned into a semi-fluid swamp, in which the human figures struggled and twisted, like dying insects trapped in amber.

The hollow areas of their faces were sunken, forming silent, shrieking black whirlpools.

"Merlin's beard..."

Bill's camera closely followed a spirit that was "bulging" from the wall, and he exclaimed excitedly.

"It's an echo of memory, but it's bound in paint! Ankh Ka has fused the curse with the medium of paint!"

Before he finished speaking, the spirit completely left the two-dimensional plane.

An illusory arm made of gray-green paint suddenly stretched out from the mural and grabbed Douglas, who was closest to it.

The arm has no substance and has a translucent texture.

Chapter 439 You can’t wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep!

Douglas didn't hide.

He just watched quietly as the hand passed through his shoulder.

No pain.

But a warm current was drawn away from the place that was touched.

Douglas could clearly see a very faint white breath, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, being pulled out of his body by the pigmented arm, then dragged back to the wall and merged into the body of the faceless spirit.

The outline of the spirit seemed to become more solid by one ten-thousandth.

"Continuous absorption of magic power and body heat."

Douglas made an immediate judgment, his tone as calm as if he were analyzing a jumping and playful Peeves in class.

"This isn't a lethal attack, but a war of attrition. If you want to make it to the end, you either have to fight hard, or..."

He looked at Bill.

Bill was pressing the shutter button frantically, with an expression of obsession and fanaticism on his face.

"It's so clever! He used a curse to confuse the concept of the soul, the Ba, with the life force, the Ka! These spirits are absorbing our Ka to repair their broken Ba!"

Several more arms stretched out from the murals on both sides, like hungry tentacles, waving silently in the air.

Douglas ignored the madman next to him who had fallen into academic frenzy.

He raised his wand.

No light appeared from the tip of the staff.

"Flowers in the Mirror and Moon in the Water!"

He cast an exquisite spell in an extremely obscure way.

The magic power did not form a barrier, nor did it attempt to attack the spirits.

It is like a drop of ink falling into clear water, blending silently into the surrounding environment.

The next second, something wonderful happened.

Those waving arms seemed to have lost their target in an instant.

They passed by the sides, heads, and feet of Douglas and Bill, but could no longer touch them accurately.

In the perception of those echoing memories, these two living people turned into a stream of flowing air without any signs of life.

"clever!"

Bill put down his camera and exclaimed in admiration.

"You tricked the curse itself! It made it unable to lock onto its target!"

Douglas put away his wand and walked forward, saying:

"His magic is very interesting. Its roots are very ancient and it is more of a contract of rules than a direct confrontation of energy."

He looked at the spiritual arms groping around him in vain, thinking.

"Unlike my imprisonment spell, Ankh-Ka's curse distorts the definition of the target. It doesn't stop you, it simply makes you non-existent at the level of rules."

Douglas thought for a moment and concluded:

"As the Muggles say, you can't wake up a person pretending to be asleep. We are the two people pretending to be asleep right now."

It was a strange feeling, as if I were walking in a silent horror movie, and I was just two ghost spectators who had nothing to do with the plot.

The tomb passage is not long. After walking for about five minutes, the front suddenly opens up.

A circular tomb appeared before our eyes.

In the center of the tomb chamber, seven pottery jars stand quietly.

And around the pottery jar, there were piles of white, dry bones scattered around.

The bones had completely jadeified in the dry air, taking on a fragile, porcelain-like texture. Judging from the shape and number of the skulls, at least a dozen intruders had arrived here.

Bill swept his wand light over them, frowning slightly. There were no traces of magic left on these bones, and he couldn't tell whether they were Muggles or wizards in their lifetime.

It seems that in this space, all the past has been wiped out, leaving only this unique, equal ending.

The moment the two stepped into the tomb, the pile of dry bones seemed to become a silent warning, and seven pottery jars came alive at the same time.

"Om-"

An invisible sound wave, like a heavy hammer, hit their mental barrier hard.

The sound was like a red-hot iron rod, stabbing into the brain brutally, trying to turn the thoughts into a pot of boiling magma.

Bill's body shook violently for just a moment, and then he immediately used his feet to support the ground and stabilize his body.

He was not panicked, but instead a look of understanding appeared on his face, as if to say "as expected".

"Thirsty resonance."

He gritted his teeth and squeezed out a few words from between his teeth, his voice a little distorted due to the tension.

"In 'Signposts in the Sandstorm,' it's mentioned that the three clay pots rolled in the sandstorm, and the low humming they made could make even camels restless."

Douglas felt just as bad, but he simply raised his hand and tapped his temple with his knuckles, neither lightly nor heavily, as if calibrating a malfunctioning instrument.

"In 'The Old Man and the Green Lizard', the old man told the children that they were hungry."

Douglas' voice was steady. He looked at Bill, and the two exchanged a knowing look.

"Those arrogant guys will definitely use 'End of All Curses' or 'Armor Protection' to resist."